(Working Women) - Words from a Wise Old Man

Although this strays a bit from my format so far, I asked my fabulous father to contribute a post. Sure, he's a dude, a population of which I'm excluding from writing these posts, because I think they've already got enough available to them. But I asked him anyway, because, well, because he's a wise old man with many, many pearls to share. Plus, he's always blabbing Alex and my ears off about all things professional, educational, financial, and health related - I thought this might be an interesting platform for him to stand tall on that soapbox of his. But seriously, because back in the 1990's, before 'N Sync sang their first tune, he worked for Portland Public School District in a position where he relied heavily on professionals interested in taking in high school students to mentor. He's frequently hypothesized that at least part of the wage discrepancy between men and women might be remedied with stronger mentorship opportunities for girls. I think I might agree. Read on for his take on finding a professional path, and advice for how we can foster this best in our current youth.


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I first want to thank Joanna and all those who have contributed their work stories—as well as those of you who are planning to do so.
 

While struggling with a late life career transition, I spent four years in Portland as a School-to-Work Coordinator.  My job was to find jobs, mentorships, internships, informational interviews, field trips, and job shadows for about 70 ‘at-risk’ kids (immigrants, gang bangers, drug rehab, teen moms, and others that our system tends to under-serve).

From this experience I would make the following observations:
 

School does not prepare youth for the workforce.  The workforce is rapidly changing and the education system is so big it is always behind the curve. Community Colleges are the most responsive by far. Teachers work hard and help kids build skills, but they still aren’t work-ready.  The most valuable skill youth can learn is ‘learning how to learn’—and good teachers do teach this.
 

High School, and even college age, is too early to make a career decision.  The higher end service economy jobs require too much maturity and experience to perform well—and the majority of us don’t even know at age 22 what we want to grow up to be. That said, from age 18-22 everyone should be working hard to research possible careers for that later decision.  And a classroom assignment to ‘research a career’ on the Dictionary of Occupational Titles barely scratches the surface ( Now replaced by the better online ‘Occupational Information Network’). And a career decision is important since it lasts a number of decades. Researching a career should be a continuing activity.
 

Entry level jobs (aka fast food) teach the kids nothing.  The food industry just wants cheap bodies. The most that is learned is the basics like showing up and taking directions. Time spent saying "Do you want fries with that?" takes away from time better devoted to higher value tasks—like better focus on classes and college admission.
 

Youth have almost no adults in their life except parents and teachers. Parents only know what they have done and most teachers have been in the education industry since age 5 and rarely know any other. Schools are an industrial way of delivering knowledge, but remove the learner from an environment where they can learn from other adult role models—and substitute lots of peer learning. This lack of multi-generational experience is the biggest barrier for kids knowing what adults really do.
 

Although gender equity has improved in the last 30 years, our structure still discriminates systematically against women.  Although we have bid goodbye to most of the overt problems (watch Mad Men for a 60s baseline), we have a more covert barriers for women (no golf, no sports talk, minimal networking, no workplace mentors, low expectations, no training in negotiation, etc). See basics at Pew Social Trends here. And we are in the midst of a huge demographic change—in the 1960s only 37% of mothers worked, now 65% do. And mothers as the sole or primary source of family income has risen from 11% to 40%. This pressure means many women opt out of the workforce long before hitting a ‘glass ceiling’. 
 

Career resources are harder to find for the average youth than for the high achievers. Minority youth have resources like Women in Science and Industry. There are now good resources for STEM (science, technology, engineering, math), but finding resources for youth who are going to be bankers, programmers, graphic artists, support health care professionals, long haul truck drivers, etc are very hard to find.

Given my negative observations above, what does work?
 

Informational Interviews:  Maybe the most powerful of tools because it allows 1:1 interaction and takes little time from either party.  Thus my introductory thanks to the authors who have contributed their stories to Joanna’s blog—they are essentially written informational interviews.
 

Job Shadows: The next level above Informational Interviews.  This is almost a hands-on learning opportunity and works well.  Why do you think that medical students are often at your MDs shoulder?  It serves to answer Joanna’s question about a ‘typical day’.
 

Internships: Top of the experience chain.  Sadly, many internships are used to obtain cheap/free secretarial labor, but wel- run and monitored, an internship can be life changing.  And even when poorly run, it at least functions as a very long Job Shadow.
 

Case Management approach to career decisions.  Okay, this will never happen, or when it does it is thanks to a caring/knowlegable parent or family member (way beyond the ‘you are so smart you should be a lawyer’).  IMO the rise in the profession of ‘Life Coach’ exposes some of the weaknesses in our system of development both personal and professional.

So, what would my call(s) to action be for those who read this blog?
 

Get listed as an information resource with the career or alumni association of your university.  Like the UPS ASK Network.
 

Offer to talk about your career in the classroom. Contact a school counselor at your local high school to see how to do this.
 

Take on Job Shadows at your workplace. Usually through the Human Resources department.
 

Be a judge at the local high school science fair.  They now have a huge range of categories—and as judge the youth get a chance to interact with a non-parent/non-teacher.
 

Mentor a girl if you can.  Usually local clubs or NGOs run these.  And it is more comprehensive than just career. This is a way of getting adult role models other than parents/teacher in a girl’s life.
 

Assertively advocate for your own career.  Start by reading Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In.  The next generation needs you to set an example. After all, the last generation laid the policy groundwork with the 1964 Civil Rights Act; your generation needs to break down the residual systemic problems.
 

Be the Career Case Manager for your own kids.  If your daughter loves dump trucks, she can make heavy equipment a career. (It is a union job represented by the International Union of Operating Engineers).

Final word. Society is better if all workers love their jobs and when women are allowed to be fully contributing. And my closing thanks for putting your work stories where they can be publically available.